Deborah Liu’s career in the payments industry has included roles at some of the best-known Silicon Valley giants — including eBay and PayPal — before her current job leading payments at Facebook. But for a California tech firm, Facebook is drawing a lot of its influence from overseas.

This year, as PaymentsSource honors The Most Influential Women in Payments, a new pattern has emerged. This year's list recognizes the contributions of entrepreneurs who took their ideas directly to market, showcasing new ways of handling business in an industry that is forced to quickly adapt to rapid changes in technology and global culture.

The stance the Bank of England is taking a proactive and pragmatic approach that should be championed, writes Nigel Green, founder and CEO of deVere Group.

Speaking at the Economic Club of New York in Manhattan, PayPal Chief Executive Officer Dan Schulman said cryptocurrencies have a very uncertain future.

deVere Group has added "Companion Accounts," which is designed to remove fees and enable shopping and expense management for relatives and companions that are in other countries, such as students or spouses.

Trustly, a Stockholm-based startup whose technology enables cross-border and online payments, has partnered with optile, a German online payments company, to expand the number of European merchants it supports for direct online bank payments.

A combination of software, operating system and development tools can turn in-vehicle "informatainment" systems into payment gateways, according to Jim Carroll, chief technology officer at Mobica.

Mastercard’s relentless push to streamline payments with digital technology is affecting the structure of its entire organization.

As both the volume and value of digital currencies increase, so will inevitable attempts to commit fraud and theft. In this nascent stage, what is protecting cryptocurrency buyers and sellers?

Chicago's government agencies are a mess of disconnected legacy systems that smacks of old-school municipal malaise and revenue loss as people trek to midcentury government facilities and wait in line to pay.

Comdata, a major issuer of fuel cards in North America, has established a partnership with payments processor Noventis to expand the range of Comdata’s suppliers that can accept payments through virtual cards to further reduce reliance on paper checks.

WorldRemit's ambitious goals for its U.S. payment operations say a lot about how immigrants here are changing as customers — they’re digitally savvy, connected and mobile-ready.

U.S. card issuers are adding contactless technology to credit and debit cards — but they are doing so in slow, small steps.

Long after e-commerce removed the biggest obstacles preventing U.S. merchants from selling internationally, there are still untapped pockets of opportunity.

As with most of the company's inventions, an Amazon checking account would more deeply embed customers into an Amazon ecosystem that provides an endless flow of data and efficiencies.

RecargaPay, an eight-year-old mobile payments platform targeting unbanked and underbanked consumers in Brazil, has secured $22 million in funding to reach more users and merchants.

Ant Financial’s Alipay is working with the Canadian payments processor Motion Pay Technology to push Ant's geographic reach in North America.

Online lenders build a seamless customer journey from screening to underwriting to origination to servicing to funding, writes Krista Morgan, CEO and co-founder of P2Binvestor.

Though the Merchant Customer Exchange failed to deliver a consumer-facing mobile wallet for its mega-retailer backers, Buy It Mobility Networks (BIM) says the underlying technology it provided is still sound.

Even if most consumers aren't leaving their plastic cards at home in favor of mobile wallets, the very idea of using a mobile wallet is no longer cutting-edge. But a few companies go the extra mile.